Tuesday, May 14, 2013

NOTD: Renaissance

Hello!

It seems like I'm always catching up on one challenge or another these days! Today I'm catching up on my Time Periods challenge in my Llama Nails group, and this week our assignment was to do something inspired by the Renaissance era.

As I searched the interwebs for inspiration, I stumbled on this beautiful gown:

After spending a while wishing I owned it and had somewhere to wear it, I decided to recreate the skirt in a skittle manicure. My first attempt didn't come out quite right, so I tried a second time.

In both cases, I started out with Orly Rococo-A-Go-Go on my index and pinkie fingers to represent the dark overskirt; the shine and richness of this polish captured the rich feel, I think. I used China Glaze Snow Globe on my middle and ring fingers for the inner white skirt; Snow Globe has small iridescent particles that gave a similar feel to the soft brocade of the skirt. For my first attempt, I then stamped an image from Bundle Monster plate BM11 with China Glaze Passion (as this is a more antiqued sort of gold), down the sides of the white polish, to represent the gold trim:

Attempt #1: Stamping direct on the white

However, this didn't feel quite right to me, and when I compared it to the picture, I realized it was because the trim is sewn onto the dark fabric, not onto the white. So I tried again, and this time on the center fingers, I made them half-and-half of each polish. Then I stamped directly on the dark side of the nails:

Attempt #2: Stamping on the dark polish

Yes yes yes yes yes!!! This is it. Not only does it capture the look of the trim better, but it makes a much prettier skittle manicure. And, the stamping shows up much better. I love this even outside of the context of the dress, and it looked very rich and pretty on the nail. I didn't want to take it off...And I'm going to recreate it at Christmas time in red. :)

Finally, just for fun, I put a coat of Snow Globe over the purple nails, to see what would happen:

Over the dark color it turned into a micro gold flakie...I'm going to store this knowledge for future reference!

Thanks for looking, and please take a look at the other Renaissance manicures, shown below. :)

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